the Benedictines

Kathleen Norris, in her book The Cloister Walk, describes that moment when the poet has to relent to the world of senses and the soul because words don’t go far enough. They can only do so much. They’re aids, pushing the buttons that lead the mind to experience. experience… and in that way they have power. Place two words together, more, create different combinations, and lead the mind to new experiences or old.

The Benedictine monasteries live on to experience God, through the word and through living in koinonia community. This experience that springs up and out from spoken, written words becoming an experience in the soul, as close to you as you can get. Experience springing forth then from within and into living with others. The poetry of the soul gains permanence when it is acted out.

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Life eternal is nought other than that blessed regard wherewith Thou never ceasest to behold me, yea, even the secret places of my soul. With Thee, to behold is to give Life; 'tis unceasingly to impart sweetest love of Thee; tis to inflame me to love of Thee by love's imparting, and to feed me by inflaming, and by feeding to kindle my yearning, and by kindling to make me drink of the dew of gladness, and by drinking to infuse in me a fountain of life, and by infusing to make it increase and endure. - Nicholas of Cusa